Moral Licensing

The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexus views and who are miloginous are not appropriate for high office. When we do something good, in other words, sometimes we then, on occasion, give ourselves permission to do something bad. There's an idea that i think helps in the phenomenon of elizabeth thompson and julia gillard. It's called moral licensing. Its a fairly new concept in social psychology. Here's the official definition, of moral licensing. Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical or otherwise problematic,. behaviours that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral.